Parental monitoring, religious involvement and drug use among Latino and non-Latino youth in the Southwestern United States

The purpose of this study was to examine parental monitoring practice and religious involvement (protective factor) and substance use among Hispanic and Non-Hispanic adolescents in the Southwest of the US. We also relied on social control theories to guide our investigation of why adolescents may choose not to use drugs. The sample was n = 1087 adolescents, the age ranged from thirteen to fifteen years, and the gender distribution was approximately equal. There were 71 percent Hispanics and 29 percent non-Hispanics in the sample. A number of measures were used including recent substance use, religiosity, religious affiliation, parental monitoring, parental permissiveness, parental norms, and acculturation. Linear regressions were used to examine the relationship between the variables of interest and the outcomes. Although the effect sizes of the significant relationships were modest, our findings are of interest because they reinforce the importance of the role of parents in the lives of their adolescents and supports previous studies that find that parents have great influence on children's behaviours including substaince use. The results suggest that adolescents benefit from having clear rules from their parents concerning substance, and from believing that there is some kind of consequence attached to their behavior. This study is useful to practitioners, social workers, educators and other professionals working with parents and adolescents.